


First Steps

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: trope_bingo, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e15 Time Is On My Side, Episode: s05e04 The End, Gen, Incest References, Rape/Non-con References, Snark, Supernatural AU: Croatoan/End'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Maybe she won't explain herself to him—because she doesn't have to explain herself to him or anyone, and why should she—but Bela will certainly give him answers, of a sort. Damnably infuriating as ever, though, Castiel doesn't react in the way that he should.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Steps

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts used are: "presumed dead" for trope bingo, and "defiant" for 100 things.

She's seated on a creaking cot and trying to get her things together before she needs to be back in the camp shop when she hears it, barely more than a whisper and practically an accusation: "You saved that girl's life, you know."

Bela looks up from the bag she's rustling through—looks up from the charms and hex-bags that she's collected and put together to use as bartering chips, or to protect herself, if need be—and she narrows her eyes when she sees the tall, thin, tousled figure Castiel cuts in the doorway. Half-silhouetted, with the light behind him looking almost like a halo, he leans against the frame and folds his hands into his pockets, tilts his head a bit and blinks at her as though she's some museum piece.

Bela huffs and rolls her eyes, returns to fussing with her things, lest Castiel go getting any inaccurate ideas about her being pleased to see him. "Of course I saved her life," she says by way of not explaining herself. "Contrary to what you might have heard from your fearless leader, I'm not completely heartless. Besides, if not for her mother, I never would have been able to refill the med-kits and then you'd be fresh out of luck for painkillers, wouldn't you? So let's cut to the chase, then, shall we…"

She looks back up, because Castiel needs to see her eyes when she says this next part—because he needs to see her tight, knife's edge smirk and he needs to understand that she's serious.

"You're here because I'm being curious and _different_ and not ostensibly behaving in the manner that you expect. You're here because you want to study me and you think that telling Hester to pull me out of the Pit gives you some right to do so. Or worse, you're here because you want to invite me to your little Club Med meditation sessions, in which case, my answer remains the same: I'm not interested."

Maybe she won't explain herself to him—because she doesn't have to explain herself to him or anyone, and why should she—but Bela will certainly give him answers, of a sort. Damnably infuriating as ever, though, Castiel doesn't react in the way that he should. He doesn't get upset about the barbs thrown in his direction. He doesn't scrunch his face up in that kittenish way he does sometimes, and he certainly doesn't get the hint and leave.

Instead, he saunters further into the cabin and kicks the door shut behind him, cocks his head and the lights flicker on, sits at the other end of the bed and folds his hands in his lap.

"I wasn't passing judgment on your actions, Bela," he says, voice as dry and gravel-marred as ever. "And I didn't mean to ascribe any value to them, either—I can certainly _attempt_ to evaluate or qualify what you've done tonight in the context of your usual behavior patterns, if you'd prefer that. Of course, judging by your reaction to the idea of my being here, I would say that you're angry, on the defensive more than you need to be—"

" _Don't_ ," she snaps. "Don't even start that with me, Angel. Perhaps Dean, Jo, Becky, Jane, Risa, Anna, Ellen, Layla, Chuck, Barnes, Damien, Charlie, your vessel, his daughter, and whomever all you've slept with haven't bothered to explain this particular nuance of human interaction to you, _Cas_ —" She sneers that nickname, drawling the single syllable for all its worth, as a subtle reminder of what he's lost by letting himself go human.

"So, considering this rather egregious oversight on their part, let me spell it out for you: it isn't particularly polite to interpret people's behavior at them. Most people don't want to hear themselves described as though they're characters in a story. Certain people—like myself, for example—have a hard enough time being regarded as fully human by the people this apocalypse has forced us to spend time with, and especially don't appreciate having our psychology picked apart by some feathery parasite who, once upon a time, got it into his head to save me."

She takes a deep breath. Heaves a sigh. Tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "I don't owe you anything, Castiel, much less any tolerance for your less-than-savory behaviors, so why don't you flutter off back to your hedonism so I can do my job?"

Cas huffs and shakes his head. "All I wanted was to commend you for saving Emily—and to thank you for it," he says. "She's very important to Claire, Claire is very important to Jimmy, and she and Jimmy are both very important to me… I appreciate the work you're doing. And I feel reasonably certain that you don't hear that often enough. Perhaps there's a reason for that, if this is how you react to people coming to say it…"

"You're right, I don't get a, 'thank you' often enough. But I also don't need to hear it when the entire world is dying." She can smell what he's trying to ramp up to from a mile off, and there won't be any touching heart-to-hearts right now. Not in Bela's cabin. Not if she can help it.

"And just to be clear," she says, "this isn't how I react to _people_ thanking me. This is how I react to _you_ thanking me, and I only react this way because you have a _history_ of prying into people's thoughts, attempting to psychoanalyze us when we don't want you to, watching Dean _sleep_ when he has _expressly_ told you not to do so—"

"I know, I know, I—" Cas sighs, and for a moment, looks like he's legitimately sorry about something, whatever it might be—at least, he looks that way as much as she can see his face, when it's in profile and staring at the floor. "I realize that I haven't done anything that might make you more inclined to trust me. I know that you don't trust very many people to begin with—"

"Well, that's an understatement if I've ever heard one—"

"And I'm sorry that I've done anything to make you feel like you can't trust me." He actually sounds like he might be—and Bela's not sure what to do with that, so she sits back, leans against the wall, and just watched him as he says his peace. "I'm sorry because, in the bigger picture, none of us can afford not to trust anyone—there aren't enough of us here and with the situation being as awful as it is… and I'm sorry because of…"

He shakes his head. "If it's not too presumptuous of me to say, then… I'm sorry because of that thing that you don't want to talk about."

"Which one? There's an encyclopedic list of things that I don't want to discuss, with you or with anyone…" Bela narrows her eyes at him—ridiculous, insidious, unpredictable angel—then huffs and starts to speak again, but he cuts her off—

"Well, the most relevant matters would be what precipitated you making your Deal—what happened with your father—and the matter of how you don't believe that you deserved to be saved. That we didn't save you to abuse any leverage it might have given us over you, the way we did with Dean."

"Yes, because you angels are really very upstanding, always do right and hang the code sorts of individuals, who regularly do things out of the goodness of your nonexistent hearts and without any ulterior motive to speak of."

Bela toes out of her dilapidated sneakers and curls her legs up onto the mattress, rubs the soles of her feet along the rough blanket. "The way I see the situation, it's really quite simple: I made a Deal, I got my ten years, I went to Hell like I was supposed to—even if I didn't deserve it, those are the _rules_ and I made my peace with them. Then forty years in, you and Hester and your garrison swing on in and pull me out of the fire. As though I hadn't already come to terms with being dead or what I would've become. As though it was nothing—well, it might have been nothing to you, for all I know. I make no claims to know how your minds work."

"We weren't supposed to save you, no—our orders were to rescue Dean and that was it, but…" Finally, he looks up from the floor, turns his eyes on her with some illegible expression that's halfway between a smile and a pout. "But we've made exceptions for others before. We healed Layla Rourke. We helped Risa find her way home when she was lost and would've died from exposure. We've turned the screw in so many ways when our orders didn't call for it—and I knew that, regardless of our orders, you didn't deserve to be in Hell."

He frowns tightly and nods. "I don't expect it to make you trust me immediately. But I will point out that, if we wanted to abuse any leverage over you, the way that Heaven did with Dean… don't you think that we would have done so by now? Or before the world went to Hell, anyway?"

Bela rolls her eyes and hugs herself. "I suppose that would've been practical, yes—and you're right, it doesn't make me any more inclined to trust you. But…" She sighs, swallows thickly, bites on her lip a moment. As she meets his gaze, she presses her lips into a thin line.

"But you're also right when you say that we can't afford not to trust each other. So, as far as camp business goes, Castiel? I trust you. If you want anything else from me, then you're going to need to earn it—and you can start by telling no one about this conversation. It's bad enough that Chuck's books told everyone here about what my father did to me."

Castiel nods again, and before he leaves, thanks Bela for the talk. And she smiles despite herself, vaguely considering the possibility that she's gotten through to him. At least, maybe they've made a positive first step.


End file.
